Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-10-14

times that man looking ever his old pa,
pers comes across that certificate, and i
is so suggestive that he VOWS he wants
none of the religion that the presidents
and trustees and directors Of that oil
company protested. OF course their re-
lection OF religion on such grounds was
unphilosCphical and unWise. am told
that one-third OF the United States army
desert every year, and there are twelve
thousand court-martisl trials every year.
Is that anything against the United
States government that swoTe them in?
And il soldiers of Jesus Christ desert, is
that anything against the Christianity
which they sWore to support and defend?
How do you judge Of the currency o. &
! country? By a counterfeit bill? Oh,
| you must have patience with those who
| HAVE BEEN swINDLED
| by religious pretenders. Live in the
presence of others frank, honest, earn
est Christian life, that they may be at
tracted to the same Saviour upon whom
your hopes depend.
Remember skepticism always has some
reason, good or bad, for existing.
! Goethe's irreligion started when the news
came to Germany Of the earthquake at
Lisbon, November l, 1775. That $4,000
people should have persisted In that
earthquake snd IN the after rising of the
Tagus River so stirred his sympathies
that he threw up his belief in the good
ness of God.
Others have gone into skepticism from
natural persistence in asking the reason
why. They have been fearfully stabbed
OF the interrogation point. There are SO
many things they cannot get explained
They cannot understand the Trinity or
how God can be sovereign and yet man 8
free agent. Neither can I. They say:
81 don't understand why good God
should have let sin come into the world"
Neither do l. You say: "Why was that
child started in life with such dlsadvant-
ages, while others have ell physical and
mental equipment? I" 1 cannot tell. They
go out OF church on Easter morning and
say: "That doctrine of the resurrection
COMPOUNDED me-" So it is to me 8 mys-
terry beyond unravelment. I understand
all the processes by which men get into
the dark. know them all. l have trav-
elled with burning feet that blistered
way. The first word that children learn
to utter is generally papa or
mamma. I think the first word
ever uttered was "Why?" I know
what it is to have hundred midnights
pour their darkness into one hour. Such
men are not to be scoffed at but helped.
Turn your back upon drowning man
when you have the rope with which to
pull him ashore, an6 let that woman in
the third story of house perish in the
flames when you have ladder with which
to help her out and help her down, rather
than turn your back scoffngly on scep-
tic whose soul
IS IN MORE PERIL
than the bodies Of those other endangered
ones possibly can be. Oh, skepticism is
a dark land. There are men in this house
who would give thousand worlds if
they possessed them, to get back to the
placid faith Of their fathers and mothers,
and it is cur place to help them, and we
may help them, never through their heads,
but always through their hearts. These
skeptics, when brought to Jesus, will be
nightly affected, far more so than those
who never examined the evidences of
Christianity. Thomas Chalmers was once
skeptic, Robert Hall skeptic, Robert
Newton skeptic, Christmas Evans q
skeptic. But when once with strong hand
they took hold of the chariot of the Cos
pei, they rolled it On with what mo-
mentum! II address such men and wo-
men to-day, 1 throw out no SCOT. l i'm
plead them by the memory of the good
old days when at their mothers
knee they said: "Now l lay me
down to Sleep" and by those days and
nights of scarlet fever in which she
watched you, giving you the medicine ST
just the right time, and turning your pill
low when it was hot, and with hands that
many years ago turned to dust, soothed
away your pain, and with voice that you
will never hear again unless you join her
in the better country, told you to- never
mind for you would feel better by-end-by,
and by that dying couch where she looked
SO pale and talked so slowly, catching
her breath between the words, and you
felt an awful loneliness coming over your
soul: by all that, beg you to come back
and take the same religion. It was good
enough for her. It is good enough for
you. Nay, have better plea than that.
pIea by all the wounds, and tears, and
blood, and groans, and sgonies, and
death-throes of the Son of God, who Gp-
proaches you this moment
WITH TORN BROW,
and lacerated hand, and whipped back,
aad saying: "Come unto me, all ye who
are weary and heavy laden, land will give
you rest"
Again, there is a field of usefulness but
little touched occupied by those who are
sestray in their habits. All northern na-
Hans, like those of North America, and
EAsland and Scotland, that is, in the
collar climates, are devastated
by sicoholism. They take the fire to keep
sRpshe warmth. In southern countries,
IKE Arabia and Spain, the blood is so
they are not tempted to fiery liquids.
The great Roman armies never drank
anything stronger than water tinged with
vinegar, but under our northern climate
the temptation to heating stimulsnts is
most mighty, and millions succumb.
When mans habits go wrong the
church drops him, the social circle drops
him, good influences drop him, we ell
drop him. OF all the men who get Off the
track but few ever get on again. Near
my summer residence there is life-sav-
Ing station on the beach. There are all
the fepes and rockets, the boats, the
machinery Tor getting people of ship
wreezs. Summer before last saw there
HfteR or twenty men who were break
sastt%g, after having just escaped with
tRH4 lives and nothing more. Up and
dSNA our coasts are built these useful
structAres, and the mariners know it, and
tHey feel that If they are driven into the
bTeakefs there will be apt from shore to
came rescue. The churches of God |
ousas&to be so many life-saving stations,
not so much to help those who are in
smooth waters but those who have been |
ShipWTecked. Come. let us run out the |